Hurriyat funding: NIA summons J&K legislator Engineer Rashid

SRINAGAR: The National Investigation Agency, which is probing illegal money transfers to Hurriyat leaders and their connections to militants and stone-pelting incidents, has summoned Jammu & Kashmir legislator Engineer Rashid of the Awami Itehad Party for questioning.

The agency has asked Rashid to be at its New Delhi headquarters on October 3. NIA, which registered a case on the money transfers in May, has already arrested seven Hurriyat leaders, businessman Zahoor Watali, photojournalist Kamran Yosuf and an activist from South Kashmir. This is the first time the agency has summoned a sitting MLA, who has not been critical of the government but sought plebiscite for the resolution of the Kashmir issue.

“NIA is politically motivated … My life is like an open book and my people who have voted me a second time as their representative against all odds are the best judge to judge my activities,” Rashid said in a statement issued on Thursday.


He said the government should introspect and understand that Kashmiris were not India’s enemies and were neither seeking any resolution to the Kashmir issue on communal lines. On Thursday, NIA continued questioning of a scholar from Kashmir University, Aala Fazili, and Kashmir Economic Alliance chairperson Muhammad Yaseen Khan in New Delhi. Kashmir University V-C Khursheed Iqbal Andrabi said he had written to the J&K governor, CM and police chief on Fazili’s questioning.